I've always enjoyed hearing stories about the person a child was named after, what a name means, or why a child was given a certain name. While Judah is rising in popularity, it is still pretty uncommon, so I figured I might share why we picked it as our boy name. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons.
- We both really liked it! It was easily agreed upon.
- An Old Testament name paired well with the names Adam, Hannah, and Joel.
- It fit our two-one-two syllable pattern (Adam Lee Simpson, Hannah Jo Simpson, Caleb Joel Simpson, and Judah Lee Simpson).
- Having two boys with J names sounds cute ("Joel and Judah").
- We liked the meaning - "praise the Lord", Genesis 29 shares a beautiful story of how Judah's mother (Leah) came to eventually find her self-worth in God (not in her beauty or her role as a mother, wife, etc.) Verse 35 states, "She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, 'This time I will praise the Lord.' So she named him Judah." Not that we didn't praise God for our firstborn, but Judah's crazy birth story brought about a different type of praise. Sweet Judah gives us more and more reasons to praise each day, and I'm sure this will continue as he grows!
Joel, Carol, and I recently enjoyed some time at Gaver Farm. There was so much to do. I was very impressed by the layout and things that were offered. I think Carol and I had just as much fun as Joel.
There were lots of different types of animals to see. We checked out goats, ducks, rabbits, chickens, donkeys, pigs, sheep, alpaca, peacocks, and turkeys. Each of the exhibits had a cute name (like "Turkey Trot" or "Peacock Palace") and listed some information about what to call each animal (for example, kid vs. billy goat vs. nanny goat). Joel wasn't very interested in feeding the animals, but he liked watching his Grammy do it. He also liked seeing eggs in the chicken coop and the suckling piglets. His favorite animal, by far, was the Tom turkey!
Joel also spent a lot of time playing with the rubber ducks at the water tower and the water pumps. He went down all of the slides several times, and he took a cow train ride. At the end, we went in the barn and picked out some pumpkins (sleepy kids = no tractor ride to the pumpkin patch ... they didn't miss it). He liked seeing all the different sizes and colors of the pumpkins. He picked two tiny white ones - one for him and one for his brother. It was such a fun time, and I hope we get to do it again in the future!
I think our craft for Grammy turned out well, but boy did it take a long time. Pasting all those tiny squares (I should've cut larger ones) took a lot of endurance on Joel's (and mom's) part. He was a liiiiiittle (ok ... a lot) distracted by rolling the glue up and down and up and down and up and down. Tonight, Joel just asked if we could make some "torn" for Ma. I had originally told him we were going to make them both the same craft. I might have to rethink that!
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